Merry Christmas!

Short update from the land up north. It is Christmas, we have just devoured a huuge breakfast of rolls and home made garnityre, topping it off with a nice strong cup of coffee now.

Why the $%$ I am seated in front of my computer you think? Well, I hurt my back on Monday. Had to happen sooner or later. In my 29 years of roaming this earth I have never been injured because of a workout.

Here is the set that gave me a kink in my lower back:



As you can see, form was good. No rounding of the back, no shifting from side to side, no loss of tension. I blame my poor warm up. Too short warm up and too few progressive sets before hitting my work weight.

Enough of that. My back is getting better. Probably just a muscle pull.

Here is what I had planned for my Thursdays workouts:



The roll outs was overkill. Might have to add a workout dedicated for core-work on a separate day. Plan will change now. Will let my back heal, eat plenty during the Christmas holiday and create a rehab plan with a very competent friend of mine.

Fat caliper said that I have lost some fat lately. Down to 8-8.5% fat at around 74.5kg body weight.

Sorry for the short sentences and fact-heavy post but hey, it is Christmas morning here in the north of Norway and I have to play with my oldest so he survives the wait..:)

Have a wonderful Christmas and a motivating new year!

Love,

Bjorn Granum

Muscle building period #3

Like I mentioned in the video above; this last period was not very productive because of little sleep and too little food.

I have not gone up in weight and my fat-caliper measurements are about the same. I did gain some strength and had some fun, so it was not a complete waste.

In my third period I am going back to a routine that is similar to my first one. Since I have access to a trap bar I have decided to increase my 20 rep weight in the trap bar. I will ease into it and start with a fairly easy weight.

Like my first period, this period will consist of two full-body workouts; Mondays and Thursdays, giving me more time to restitute then my last period.

Mondays will look like the video;

• warm up with foam rolling, some light stretching, dynamic stretching and some activation/mobility work
• trap bar deadlift, 20 reps , taking short breaks when/if I need them
• weighted dips, activation set of 12-15 reps followed by a total of 10-15 effective reps spread out in sets of 5-1 reps with 10-20 sec breaks between sets
• facepulls, 2x10 reps

Thursdays might look something like this;

• rear foot elevated squat, activation set of 12-15 reps followed by 10 effective reps divided into smaller sets of 5-1 reps with 10-20 sec breaks between sets
• standing barbell press, 3x5 reps
• weighted chinups, activation set of 8-10 reps followed by a total of 10 effective reps
• one foot stiff legged dead lift, 2x10 reps
• one arm dumbell bench press, 2x10 reps
• standing and kneeling wheel-rollouts

These are my current thoughts for this period. My Monday routine is set, I will just have to test out my Thursday routine to see if it will fly.

Till next time: Do not hate..motivate! Do good and prosper!

Dead lift form and what I eat

Since it seems like you guys would like me to focus more on youtube updates, I will..:)

As I have mentioned before; I have two sons, one 5 month old baby and one 5 year old. The baby is getting his teeth at the moment so sleep is slowly becoming something of the past.

I have skipped the Wednesday workout two weeks in a row now because of my poor restitution (mostly because of too little sleep), so it felt ekstra nice to get in a good session today (yes, I prosponed the Wednesday workout for today)!

Lately I have been thinking about my dead lift form and have arrived to the conclusion that I shift my weight too much forward at the start of the lift. I tried to focus on maintaining the weight at the back/center of my foot today.

It does not make much sense to "focus of form" with an "active" work weight, so because I am a bit impatient when it comes to my own development I used straps on my work sets so I could focus on my legs and my low back.

Might do me good to complete a period of rack-pulls to strengthen the top part of the dead lift.

While I was waiting for the squat rack to be available I decided I would try the one arm wheel rollout. This is an extreme exercise that I have seen over at Ross Enamaits site; www.rosstraining.com , but never tried.

Considering I have not done any core-work for quite some time, I was fairly pleased with my effort.

My power wheel will get more milage in the weeks to come. Last Monday I felt that my core was week during 117.5kg squats.. Not good..

Regarding my diet and my comments in the video above; I eat fairly healty, take one table spoon of fish oil every day, drink two protein shakes miksed with milk every day (extra calories and to maintain a high protein inntake) and use 5g kreatine monohydrate every day.

I also eat quite a lot of sugar, fat and eat far too little green and fruits.

That is it, that is all.